What initial wireframe sketches should look like.

January 13, 2009

Check out these initial sketches for the Scribd user interface. This is what they should look like: messy and conceptual. For some reason, a lot of people still don’t get this. Being able to draw is a bonus, not a requirement.

Jerome, the emotional baggage thig is important too, if clients feel like they too can mark the drawing, it becomes part of an ongoing conversation rather than a deliverable that gets looked at then left on a shelf.

Good to see some wireframes that look as ‘bad’ as mine. But yeah, it’s all about getting your thoughts and ideas down and organising them.
Because quite a bit of thought has already gone in, the above sketch could easily inform an interactive prototype if that was the next step.

I’ve been told that at Apple, sketches like these aren’t allowed outside of the designer’s office. That everything presented internally is shiny and polished and looks real. The thinking is that when something looks good, it’s easier to feel good about it

At Google is was the opposite. On my first day I requested Photoshop, and my manager was worried that I’d be putting too much polish on them too early. I assured her that I “sketch in photoshop”. :)